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Comment by smartmic | Hacker News Reader

You just considered one axis of the waste properties. It must also be in the equation that the waste will remain radioactive and toxic for thousands of years, far beyond the time horizon of what a normal human brain is capable of processing. Also, the effects (spatial, biological) if the waste is released for whatever reason (which we may not even know now). So the debt we transfer to future generations goes far, too far, beyond just a question what space is required for the waste.

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I really like the argument of just keeping the waste on site at the reactors. They're already heavily guarded and everybody is trained to deal with the waste + safety inspections happen regularly.

Just keep the waste on site and then, if a plant is decommissioned, add it to another reactor's pile.

It's not a permanent solution for millions of years, but it's also likely fine for the next 100 years and that's a reasonable tradeoff (imo).

> far beyond the time horizon of what a normal human brain is capable of processing

This is just hyperbole though. All the other arguments aside, it's perfectly possible for humans to plan, and make risk estimates, beyond a human life span.

The Germans could not even properly manage one of their test locations (for weak and medium-level radioactive nuclear waste, not for waste from nuclear plants) longer than a few decades. One person who worked there said that after a few years they didn't know anymore what and how much exactly was stored there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine

Some humans can plan well over such horizons, but the reason we even need to have this discussion now is that the people in charge 70 years ago didn't care to plan to mitigate against the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants, even though Svante Arrhenius calculated in 1896(!) that doubling atmospheric CO2 concentrations would increase Earth's temperature 4-6 °C (depending in part on which Wikipedia reference I follow).

We're making the Earth unhinhabitable for millions of people already with climate change

I think a small pile of hot rubbish well hidden is the least of our problems

If renewables are adequate there is no need for this hot rubbish.

Well, sadly they are not

Sure, easy to grant you that Nuclear is not perfect.

But I'm not comparing Nuclear to perfection; I'm comparing it to existing alternatives. Climate change is real, the stakes are high, and nuclear brings a lot to the table.

Nuclear can provide base load energy. To provide base load with renewables requires battery storage that doesn't exist. I'm sure the technology exists but whether because expense or other issues, energy grids around the world don't use grid level storage. And consumers are not interested in trading a little reliability for greener grids; they consistently insist that dirty alternatives close the gap.

And very rough estimate here (it is going to vary considerably based on the solar panels and plant in question, but the principle is unchanged): 1 nuclear plant is roughly 4,000 sq km of solar panels. So like 80 Manhattans ever inch of it a solar panel array. The environmental destruction caused by solar panel array and wind farms is real. The amount of mining required to create the materials needed for 4k solar panels also has a very high environmental cost. Nuclear is compact and requires less materials.

We deal with all kinds of waste that we know would be damaging if it was released in the environment. Radioactivity is dangerous, but I would argue far better understood than many other phenomenon (like micro plastics). It is a challenge, but there is no avoiding challenges. The tradeoffs feel well worth it to me.

Spent fuel will remain toxic forever. Uranium and plutonium are heavy metals. They will have to be treated as dangerous substances from now until the end of time, much like lead or mercury.

Northern Sweden is known for its iron mines. What people might not know is that if you live anywhere near where such mining has occurred (many miles away from the actually mining site), it is strongly recommended that people have detectors for radium. Obviously, water that is close to mining sites is generally not advisable to drink. Mining just bring up a lot of toxic things that the human body react badly with.

What percentage of the earth’s crust is lead? How does that compare to spent fuel?

Approximately 0.0013% and 0%, respectively. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

My point is that we already deal with many substances that are toxic forever. Something about the danger reducing over the course of thousands of years seems to make people more concerned about the future than when the danger is permanent.

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